Leaders from South Korea, China and Japan yesterday reaffirmed their goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, during a rare summit at which they also agreed to deepen trade ties.
The summit brought together South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Seoul for the countries’ first trilateral talks in nearly five years, partly due to the COVID-19, pandemic but also to once-sour ties.
While North Korea was not officially on the agenda, hours before the leaders met Pyongyang announced that it would soon put another spy satellite into orbit — a move that contravenes rafts of UN sanctions barring it from tests using ballistic technology.
Photo: EPA-EFE
At a joint press conference, Yoon and Kishida urged North Korea to call off the launch, with the South Korean leader saying it would “undermine regional and global peace and stability.”
Yoon also called for a “decisive” international response if Kim went ahead with his fourth such launch — aided by what Seoul claims is Russian technical assistance in exchange for Kim sending Moscow arms for use in Ukraine.
However, China, North Korea’s most important ally and economic benefactor, remained notably silent on the issue, with Li not mentioning it during the briefing.
In a joint statement issued after the talks, the countries reaffirmed their commitment to the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” adding that peace “serves our common interest and is our common responsibility.”
Pyongyang hit back immediately, saying in a statement by a North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson that “to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula today constitutes a grave political provocation.”
The three countries yesterday also announced that they would arrange “discussions for speeding up negotiations for a Trilateral FTA [free-trade agreement],” and boost three-way cooperation, including holding summits on a regular basis.
Li also said they had agreed on not turning “economic and trade issues into political games or security matters, and rejecting protectionism as well as decoupling or the severing of supply chains,” Xinhua news agency reported.
After their talks, Yoon, Li and Kishida joined a business summit aimed at boosting trade between the countries, which was also attended by top industry leaders.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan